Follow-Up: Duffy Says a Single Router Flooded the Air Traffic Network in the Nationwide Ground Stop; 17 of 22 Centers Affected, Over 5,000 Saturday Flights Canceled

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Bryan Bedford held a press conference in Washington on the morning of November 14 and laid out the preliminary findings on the November 13 nationwide ground stop: while contractor L3Harris was performing routine maintenance at a remote facility, switching communication lines from copper wire to fiber, a router flooded the air traffic control network with connection requests, affecting 17 of the nation's 22 air route traffic control centers and prompting the FAA to order the nationwide ground stop. Both officials said there was no evidence the failure was linked to a cyberattack or to super intelligence (SI).

FAA acting chief technology officer Rebecca Guy told the press conference that after the network became unstable, technicians found two locations pinging the network at a rate of about 1,000 connections every four to five seconds; the FAA disabled both right away, the network stabilized, and a root cause analysis is now under way. Duffy said it has not yet been determined whether the fault was user or installer error by L3Harris or a defective router, and that those responsible would be held accountable once the cause is established. L3Harris said in a statement to CNN that it is supporting the FAA's investigation into the conditions that led to the November 13 ground stop and takes the impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.

Bedford said as many as 17 facilities were affected, with frequencies going in and out and controllers forced to switch between primary and backup frequencies, but none of the facilities actually went dark. He said that if a single facility had been affected, the FAA would have worked through it; when the count rose to two, three, 10 and then 17 facilities, the agency realized it was facing a much larger problem and ordered the nationwide stop. Duffy said about 30 percent of the nation's copper wires have yet to be replaced with fiber, that officials are working to identify where those lines are, and that the timing of such switchover work will be reevaluated.

The disruption carried into Saturday. According to flight tracking service FlightAware, as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, more than 5,000 flights had been canceled across the United States on Saturday and more than 4,400 were delayed. Bedford told the press conference that as many as 5,000 of the roughly 41,000 flights scheduled for Saturday could be canceled as airlines reposition aircraft and crews; he said the worst is behind us and that full recovery can be expected on Sunday. Duffy again called on Congress to invest further in the air traffic control system, and House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News the same day that Republicans would use the remaining 50 days of their House majority to authorize more spending on the FAA.

Related: Follow-Up: Transportation Secretary Duffy Holds Press Conference in Washington on Nationwide Ground Stop Response and Flight Recovery

Related: Follow-Up: More Than 2,500 U.S. Flights Canceled Saturday as Airlines Recover From Nationwide Ground Stop (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation)

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation

Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：美国联邦航空管理局（FAA）华盛顿航路交通管制中心的管制员在岗位上工作（资料图）。美国联邦航空管理局官方照片，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons，本图已裁为 16:9。 / Photo: Air traffic controllers at work at the FAA Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center (file photo). U.S. Federal Aviation Administration photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped to 16:9.

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